Eighteen Acres: A Novel

EIGHTEEN
ACRES

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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2010 by Nicolle Wallace

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First Atria Books hardcover edition October 2010

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Designed by Kyoko Watanabe

Manufactured in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Wallace, Nicolle.

   Eighteen acres : a novel / by Nicolle Wallace. — 1st Atria Books

hardcover ed.

     p. cm.

1. Women presidents—United States—Fiction. 2. United States—Politics and government—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3623.A4437E54 2010

  813'.6—dc22                                     2010030072

ISBN 978-1-4391-9482-9
ISBN 978-1-4391-9496-6 (ebook)

For my husband, Mark

EIGHTEEN
ACRES

Melanie

Melanie pushed the tissue paper aside and gazed adoringly at the Dior bag she had splurged on for her thirty-seventh birthday. It was a ridiculous extravagance. The second most expensive bag in her closet was a Marc Jacobs she’d purchased on sale years before. The elegance of the two-thousand-dollar Dior purse would be lost on most of Melanie’s colleagues, but its perfection brought her a surprising amount of happiness.

As Melanie pulled the purse out of its protective cloth and removed the paper stuffed inside, she suddenly felt worried that all of her electronics wouldn’t fit into it properly. She looked at the three BlackBerrys—one for the classified e-mail system, one for the normal White House e-mail system, and one for her personal Yahoo account. She considered leaving one of them behind but thought better of it. Gently, she stacked the BlackBerrys, two phones, her ID for the West Wing, an ID and key for the underground command center she’d be evacuated to in case of a terrorist attack, her passes to the Pentagon and the State Department, an ID for the Camp David guard station, a West Wing parking pass, and her wallet and keys inside and closed it.

She stopped in front of the hallway mirror to attach her hard pin to the lapel of her black Armani pantsuit. The small, round pin bearing the presidential seal signaled to the United States Secret Service that
she was to be granted full access to the president. Only a dozen White House staffers were given hard pins. She glanced at her reflection and nodded approvingly. Five years on a strict no-carbohydrate diet had banished her full cheeks, and the miracle of chemical straightening had finally tamed her red curls. Melanie’s hair hung in a stylish strawberry-blond bob. She scrunched her nose and leaned in to examine the creases and dark circles that rimmed her eyes. “Those look like the eyes of an old woman,” she said to herself before turning out the lights in her Georgetown condo and walking out.

“Morning guys,” she said to her agents as she hopped into the SUV that would take her less than two miles to the White House. She’d resisted full-time Secret Service protection at first, but on mornings like this, she was glad she’d relented. Snow had been falling since late the night before, and at five-thirty
A.M.
, they would make fresh tracks.

“Happy birthday, Ms. Kingston,” Sherry said. Sherry was one of her regular agents. She turned around, smiled at Melanie, and handed her an envelope. “Open it—it’s from both of us,” she said, gesturing at Walter, Melanie’s other agent.

“Thanks, Sherry, but my birthday is a classified national security event. I didn’t even remind Char—er, President Kramer that it was today.”

“Mmm-hmm,” Walter said, glancing at Melanie in the rearview mirror as he navigated M Street in the snow. “And it’s not like she has the CIA or the FBI to turn to if she wants to find out for herself when her chief of staff’s birthday is, so you should be fine, Melanie.” He smirked. “Your secret is safe with us.”

“Shut up, Walter. Just keep your eyes on the road,” Melanie said.

“Yes, ma’am,” Walter said, still smiling.

A minute later, he pulled the car as close as possible to the entrance of the West Wing and jumped out to open the door for her.

Melanie stepped out of the SUV, holding her Dior bag protectively under her suit jacket so the fresh snow wouldn’t touch the leather. She wished she’d worn a coat, but she’d stopped dressing for the seasons years ago. It could be ninety-seven degrees outside, or minus seven, and the climate was always a cool sixty-six degrees inside the West Wing, where she’d be for the next sixteen hours.

Melanie climbed the single flight of stairs to her office and walked inside. Her assistant, Annie McKay, was already there.

“Happy birthday,” she whispered, even though no one else would have heard her if she’d yelled at the top of her lungs. Melanie always arrived before anyone else on the senior staff.

“Thanks, Annie,” Melanie said.

“Let me see it,” Annie said.

“What?” Melanie replied innocently, opening her suit jacket.

“Oh, my God, it is amazing—totally worth the splurge. It has
elegant
and
expensive
and
woman of substance
written all over it,” Annie exclaimed, standing to get a better look at the bag.

Melanie smiled. She settled in at her desk, casting an admiring glance at the fire that had already been lit in the fireplace.
Cozy
, Melanie thought.
Maybe today won’t be so bad.

She looked around her spacious office on the main floor of the West Wing and wondered if it was her elevation to this most lonely job on the White House staff or growing fatigue from so many years in the political trenches that had made her reflective to the point of distraction.

Every room in the White House brought back a memory of a time when she had felt fortunate to be there. These days, she usually found herself standing in these rooms, asking—sometimes begging—the walls to talk to her. Sometimes the history that she and Charlotte were making struck her as embarrassingly overdue—many other countries had been ruled by women. And at other time, it was exhilarating to think that a new generation of women would grow up knowing that the glass ceiling had been shattered once and for all. But the vast majority of the time, Melanie’s life was exhausting, her assignments unseemly, and the rewards nonexistent.

She read the intelligence reports from the overnight, a memo from the national security advisor about troop reductions that would go to the president that morning, and the jobs report number that would be kept secret until eight-thirty
A.M.
She finished the front sections of the
Wall Street Journal
, the
Washington Post
, the
New York Times
, and Washington’s first official tabloid, the
Washington Journal.

When she noticed that the sun had come up and brightened her
office with an orange glow, she glanced up at one of her five televisions. She unmuted one of the stations just as it was teasing its lead story: “Coming up at seven
A.M.
: Is President Kramer AWOL on the economy? We’ll have some surprising reactions from our viewers to that very question.”

“The president is on her way to the Oval,” Annie said, appearing in Melanie’s door. “You should probably walk over. She’ll want to see you about the speech, I’m sure.”

“I’ll head over in a couple minutes,” Melanie said.

Melanie had been given a desktop device that told her where the president was at all times. “Wayfarer” was the president’s Secret Service code name, and whenever the president moved anywhere—other than the bathroom—an automated voice would announce her whereabouts: “Wayfarer departing residence. Wayfarer arriving Oval Office. Wayfarer departing Oval Office. Wayfarer arriving Cabinet Room.” The voice had driven Melanie crazy, so she’d moved the box to Annie’s desk, and it fell to Annie to inform her of the president’s movements.

Annie reappeared one minute later. “Sam just called. The president wants to see you,” she said. Samantha Cohen was the president’s assistant.

“Tell her I’m coming,” Melanie said. She stood up and walked the twenty-five feet to the Oval Office, stopping briefly at Sam’s desk.

“Morning, Samantha. Is anyone else in there?” Melanie asked, even though she knew no one would be.

“Nope, she’s waiting for you,” Sam said.

Melanie walked into the Oval Office and stood a few feet away from the president’s desk.

“Good morning, Madam President,” Melanie said.

“Good morning, Melanie,” the president said.

“How are we doing today?” Melanie asked.

“Crappy. Did you see the jobs number?” the president asked.

“Yes. One hundred thousand is better than they predicted. The markets might hold up,” Melanie said.

“I don’t think so. We’re going to get killed today. The story writes itself: ‘President Proves She Is Tone-deaf on Economy.’ I don’t know
why I’m giving this speech in Detroit. Why couldn’t we go to Silicon Valley or New York or somewhere with an economy that isn’t in the toilet?” the president asked as she took her black Sharpie to the speech text and started slashing huge sections—a tactic she employed to show her displeasure and make staffers nervous.

Melanie’s head started to throb.